4-Way Partnership Brings Schoolyard Ecology to
Lowell's Urban Schools
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| Students Record Color Change and Leaf Drop of a Sugar Maple Tree They Planted in 2008 |
Massachusetts Audubon Society (MAS) in partnership with Lowell Parks & Conservation Trust ( LP&CT) brings Harvard Forest Schoolyard Ecology into the Lowell Public Schools.
MAS and LP&CT Educators engage city kids in a Harvard Forest's Buds, Leaves and Global Warming project through after-school Environmental Stewardship Programs in Lowell's public schools.
John J. Shaughnessy School
MAS Educator Martha Slone and Bora Poun from
Lowell Parks & Conservation Trust lead Elementary aged children in recording and entering leaf color and leaf drop data with her students. They also work cooperatively on graphing their own data.
Bartlett Community Partnership School
MAS Educator, Susan St. John and Kathleen Hirbour of Lowell P&C lead children in collecting temperature data at Bartlett Community Partnership School. Here is the beginning of what they are seeing. Data points will be added as data is collected in Feb., March, April and May. Students are also working on school garden, and the decomposition process. Susan expects to work with Bartlett Middle School Science teacher, Laura
Schofield, to begin a Buds, Leaves and Global Warming project there. Laura already involves her Bartlett students in Harvard's Schoolyard Ecology "Our Changing Forests" project.
Robinson Middle
MAS Educator, Sally Farrow and LP&CT Educator, Bora Poun, lead one program per week for 5th, 6th , and 7th graders at the Robinson MS with the after school director, Sue McCloud. Content includes learning about native animals and habitats and what students can do to support them. Each program includes an environmental stewardship project to help the habitats surrounding the school.
As part of the LP&CT Urban Forestry program the Robinson
Middle School students planted a Sugar Maple tree in 2008. Four trees were originally planted by this partnership. The city of Lowell was so inspired they later planted 47
more trees at the Robinson MS.
Students have been monitoring the Sugar maple for 8
years and have been entering phenology data onto the Harvard Forest Schoolyard Ecology, Buds, Leaves and Global Warming project database since 2013. (RMB).
Students recording tree color and leaf drop data and finding lady bug larva on the tree.
Robinson MS Students observing lady bug larvae found on the Sugar Maples.
Lowell High School
Katie Keefe directs the Environmental Adventures after school program as part of the Compass program LHS Freshman Academy for students in 9th grade. MAS Educator Sally Farrow and Emily McDermott of LP&CT help lead this group twice a week Tuesday and Thursday, focusing on native animals , plants and habitats; Students decide which environmental stewardship projects they want to accomplish. Recent projects include: creation of a Zen rain garden in the alley to gather storm water run-off, improving the alley soil and helping the trees, looking at improving the environmental health of the building as well as recording the timing of leaf color change and leaf drop (Phenology) of our tree as well as monitoring river habitat.
The students in the 10th-12th grades who want to continue environmental stewardship created their own group T.R.E.E.S (Teens Representing Environmental Excellency and Stewardship) They meet once a week for 1 ½ hours. This group has done a number of environmental stewardship projects while mentoring Freshman students. Projects include: recycling, phenology, river monitoring, and a Save the Earth, Visit a Park project. Last year they also created and ran the first Environmental Youth Conference (EYC) which they will run again this year.
Also through the LP&CT Urban Forestry program, HS students planted a red maple on arbor day 2015 to replace a Norway maple that had fallen. Students led by MAS Educator, Sally Farrow, have been following this tree (LWH) for about three years and entering the data with the Harvard Forest Buds, Leaves and Global Warming project. They also calculated how much carbon the schoolyard's alley trees sequester. There are 7 Norway maples and one red maple in the High School's field site.
Lowell HS students made bird feeders and placed them on Sugar Maple trees to enhance bird habitat.
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Here is what the Lowell Schools' Buds, Leaves and Global Warming Data is showing as compared with long term data from Overlook Middle School and Drumlin Farm which are included for reference. Note that LWH is Lowell HS data, RBM is Robinson Middle School, DFA is Drumlin Farm, and OMS is for Overlook Middle School. J. Shaughnessy School does not yet have enough data to show a full growing season and therefore not included in this graph. We expect that the Bartlett Community Partnership school will also begin contributing data to this study next season.
We are wondering what makes Lowell HS data so different than the other sites. MAS Educator, Sally Farrow is wondering if the following variables could explain the difference: altitude, north south, urban vs rural, age of tree,
different tree species, masting year, drought conditions.
What do you think? |
Thanks to all who have contributed to this Blog post including:
Sally Farrow, Martha Slone, Susan St. John, Robin Stuart, Jennifer Feller of Mass. Audubon Leigh Cameron, Emily McDermott, and Jane Calvin of Lowell Parks and Conservation Trust.
Katie Keefe, Carolyn Rocheleau,Lowell Public Schools After School program
The Lowell partnership is supported by a variety of donors including significant long term support from the 21st Century Community Learning Grant, Mass Cultural Council, Fieldstone Foundation, and the Cummings Foundation.
